


accidentally in love

by amusewithaview



Series: Said the Hatter with a sigh, "It's always Tumblr time." [10]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, Thor (Movies)
Genre: Accidental Baby Acquisition, Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, Beta Darcy Lewis, Gen, Kid Fic, Medical Experimentation, Nonconsensual Cloning (Hydra is full of @$$holes), Unethical Experimentation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-07
Updated: 2017-11-13
Packaged: 2018-11-10 03:11:05
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,529
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11118696
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/amusewithaview/pseuds/amusewithaview
Summary: “Glad to see you’re not dead,” Darcy said tersely.  She shifted the toddler to her hip and smoothed a hand down over his hair, gently turning his face towards her neck so he could smell her.The little boy took one whiff and went utterly boneless.  All three adults remained silent until it became clear that he had fallen asleep.“Please,” Steve said, having drawn up some composure from somewhere.  “I don’t - there’s not that many left around here that I trust, let alone with a child.  And he’s - ”  He lifted his head, looking at the small boy with anger and guilt and a hundred other painful things on his face.  “He… he’s special, Darcy.”





	1. Chapter 1

Darcy was moving even before she started talking, gently lifting the sleepy-looking toddler out of Steve’s arms before he could so much as blink.  “Where the hell have you been?” she murmured, quietly upbeat tone contrasting completely with her speech.  “You went off comms two days ago and Clint went absolutely _ballistic!_ Where’s Natasha?”

“Here, Darcy,” the redhead said, stepping out from behind Steve.  Both of them looked absolutely exhausted.  Natasha was bruised and scuffed, as was the blond, but Steve looked more emotionally drained than anything else.

“Glad to see you’re not dead,” Darcy said tersely.  She shifted the toddler to her hip and smoothed a hand down over his hair, gently turning his face towards her neck so he could smell her.

The little boy took one whiff and went utterly boneless.  All three adults remained silent until it became clear that he had fallen asleep.

Steve immediately slumped against the nearest wall.  “That’s the first time I’ve seen him calm down all the way since we found him,” he said, voice a little hoarse.  He sounded like he’d been crying.  She didn’t know what could make the big guy cry, but she wanted to hug him and feed him a sandwich and shove him in a bed for eight hours rest all at the same time.

Natasha raised an eyebrow at the younger woman.  “I did not realize child-wrangling was on your list of accomplishments, though considering your interactions with Tony, it isn’t surprising.”

Darcy rolled her eyes.  “Oldest of six,” she reminded them, unnecessarily in her opinion because: “I _know_ it’s in my file which I _also_ know you read, so don’t play dumb with me, it doesn’t suit you.  You brought him here on purpose, don’t _even_.”

Nat smiled.  “If Clint and I weren’t exclusive…”

“Flattery will get you nowhere.”

“Please,” Steve said, having drawn up some composure from _somewhere_.  “I don’t - there’s not that many left around here that I trust, let alone with a child.  And he’s - ”  He lifted his head, looking at the small boy with anger and guilt and a hundred other painful things on his face.  “He… he’s special, Darcy.”

“Relax, Steve, Nat didn’t steer you wrong.  I can look out for the lil munchkin here.  Thor’s due back on-planet any day now.  The kid couldn’t ask for a more secure location.  I can look after the little guy and Janey both, no sweat.”

“I don’t want to impose,” Steve said haltingly.

“Stop.  No, really.  Stop while you’re ahead, before you insult me.  It’s not an _imposition_.”  She eyed the both of them shrewdly.  “I know what you two have been working on, _who_ you’ve been looking for and _where_ you’ve been doing it.  At least, I have an _idea_ , and it’s nowhere a kid should be.  You don’t have to tell me everything that’s going on, I’m cool with speculating for now.”

Natasha hummed a little to her self.  “Perhaps Clint and I should revisit the terms of our relationship.”

Darcy chuckled, careful not to wake the kid.  “Get out of here, go wash up and wind down.  I can put the kid to sleep in my suite with me.  You’ll know where he is if you need to find him.”

“ _Thank you,_ ” Steve said, sounding fervently grateful, but still with that odd underlying edge of _guilt_.  He smelled like emotional turmoil and more than a little pain, and that even to Darcy’s comparatively weak beta nose.

“Really quick though,” Darcy said as the duo reached the doorway, “does he have a name?”

Steve flinched, and Natasha quickly pressed a hand to his shoulder, gently nudging the taller alpha through the door and on to the wing of the building that housed the personal quarters.  The spy half turned back to Darcy, most of her face in shadow.  “He had a number,” she said quietly.  “I don’t think they felt that he had _earned_ a name yet.”

* * *

Darcy discovered the next morning that both of the Avengers had left overnight, barely staying at the base long enough to get a shower and a change of clothes before they were off again.  It wasn’t entirely surprising, not when their search had yielded… _this_.

In the light of day, the plight of the nameless little boy was even more heart-wrenching.  Darcy, with her extensive experience with children, put his age at roughly three.  He was tall, but extremely lanky to the point of feeling almost weightless when she picked him up.

He was also completely silent.  Not just in speech, but in movement as well.  If he wasn’t so completely starved for positive physical contact, she was pretty sure she’d be losing him constantly.  As it stood though, he hadn’t let go of her willingly since she’d taken him into her arms the night before.

Lacking a better place to put him, she’d given him one half of her queen-size bed, expecting that he’d curl up on the opposite side of the pillow-wall she used to split the space.  Instead, he climbed over the wall and curled up against her as soon as she lay down.  She woke up to serious blue eyes staring at her out of a face that was definitely too young for worries of any sort, in her book.  He’d flinched when he realized he’d been caught, and it broke her heart.

“G’morning, sunshine,” she’d said, tugging him close and rubbing her face in his hair until she felt him smile.  “How d’you feel about pancakes?”

He shrugged, burying his face against her neck again.

“Never had them before?” she guessed.

He hesitated, then nodded.

“Well, we’ll have to fix that!”  Darcy had no real idea how long she would have with the toddler before the superheroes returned, but she promised herself right than and there that she would have him thoroughly ~~corrupted~~ _rekidified_ by the time they came back.

It took her a day to make him smile.

Two days to get him to release her for more than bathroom breaks.

Three days before he would do more than stare blankly at Jane.

Four days to coax out something approaching a giggle.

Five days until he would express a preference for _anything_.

On the sixth day, he _laughed_ , and Darcy fell in love.

* * *

“Jane,” Darcy said, flopping facedown onto the older woman’s bed.  “ _Jane_.  What do I _do?!_ ”

“Adopt?”

“Jane!  He’s not _mine!_ ”

The scientist let out an undignified snort.  “Darcy, if that kid hasn’t imprinted on you, I will eat every paper I’ve published.”

“No,” she said, though it was half-hearted at best, “there’s no way, he’s just -”

“Sniffing you for his health?” Jane supplied dryly.  “Really?”

Darcy lifted her face out of the bedspread.  “But he can’t - I mean I was just doing what I do with _all_ the kids - I didn’t _mean_ -”

“Darcy,” Jane said gently, scooting down the bed until she could wrap an arm around the younger woman, “you treated a lonely, probably _abused_ , kid, one who _didn’t even have a name_ before he came here, like family.  Why are you surprised that he’s trying to do the same?”

“But he’s not mine, Jane,” she repeated.  “I don’t think I get to keep him.”

“The real question here is - do you _want_ to?”

Darcy leaned forward and hid her face against the older woman’s shirt, refusing to answer.  In response, she felt a second arm wrap around her, pulling her closer so Jane could offer what comfort she could.  “I don’t know,” she said after a minute or two, muffled by her friend’s flannel shirt.

“I think you do,” Jane contradicted her quietly.

She clutched her closer in response, and let the alpha pet her hair until she calmed down enough to go back to her suite, where the little boy who wasn’t hers (but he could be - he _should_ be) was waiting.

 _I want to keep him_ , she admitted to herself, walking into her bedroom to find that he’d curled up around her pillow.   _I want him to be mine_.

 _And if wishes were horses, beggars would ride_.

* * *

“All right, that’s it.  I can’t take any more of this,” Darcy decided, halfway through breakfast on the seventh day.

The little boy looked up at her with wide eyes, a spoon full of Cheerios frozen halfway to his open mouth.

Darcy fixed him with a mock-stern look.  “You need a name.”

He dropped the spoon entirely, and if she’d thought his eyes were wide before, they were the size of _saucers_ now.

She ignored his scramble to clean up the tiny spill of milk.  The kid was incredibly fastidious, a trait whose origin she had no desire to think about.  She gave him a minute to put his place setting back in order before she continued.  “I have gathered suitable inspiration and we will watch it before we embark on the epic quest to get you a name of your own, kiddo.”

He just stared at her.

“Finish your breakfast and we can start -” the words were barely out of her mouth before he was wolfing down the food like he thought it might run away.

Thirty seconds later there wasn’t a trace of milk left in the bowl and he was staring at her expectantly.

“Well all right then, lets go queue up The Neverending Story and get this party started!”

After they watched the movie, they sat together on the couch with a stack of baby name books that JARVIS had had delivered at her request.  Each of them would pick a book and flip through, Darcy calling out the names that jumped out at her and the little boy pointing out the ones that he liked.  She didn’t question his ability to read, or try to coax actual words out of him.  He would tell her, or he wouldn’t - she didn’t plan to pry unless it became absolutely necessary.

Jane joined them after a little while, and it became almost a game.  Both women would explain all of the things they knew about the names without research: fictional characters and famous people who had shared the name, what they’d done with it.  Unsurprisingly, considering the duo, the focus was heavily on science (both political and hard) as well as literary and film heroes.  With this in mind, the child discarded many names including, but not limited to, Rhett, Jonas, Terrance, Igor, Harvey, Abraham, Sigmund, Morgan, and Damien.

It took a little while, but eventually Darcy noticed that he was keeping one book close to him and he kept flipping back to the same page.  Eventually he took the book to Jane, the first time he had done so, and pointed out a name to her.  Jane looked at it, then back at him, and grinned.

“You sure?” she asked.

He nodded firmly.

“Okay then, why don’t you show her?”

He brought the book back to Darcy and hesitantly showed her the name he had, apparently, picked out for himself.

“Dugan?” she said, more than a little surprised.  She shot a confused look over at Jane, but the other woman just grinned, Mona Lisa style.  “Well,” Darcy began slowly, “it’s got a kind of Irish, or at least British Isles, feel to it.  The only famous person I can think of is… a soldier.”  She looked down at the boy’s serious expression and wondered what Steve would think when he came back and realized that the kid he’d rescued had unwittingly named himself after one of the Howling Commandos.  “He was a very good soldier,” she continued, “very brave and honorable, and definitely still respected today.  Are you sure?”

The newly-named Dugan nodded firmly.

“Okay, Dugan it is.  Dugan.  Duuuuugan.  Huh.  I don’t dislike it,” she reassured him after seeing a small frown on his face.  “I’m just trying it out.  It’s a good name.  You made a good choice, kiddo.”  She reached out and rubbed her hand over his head, pushing some light brown hair behind his ear.  “Ready for lunch yet?  Why don’t you head to the kitchen and start pulling out some sandwich fixings?”  She waited till he’d nodded and trotted off before turning back to Jane.  “Spill.”

“Look at the book.”

Huffing, the younger woman picked up the book and flipped to the page with ‘Dugan’ and a bunch of names of similar origin.  She was surprised to find her own name there as well.  She looked at both entries, frowning a little.  “Wait -”

“They have similar meanings and origins,” Jane confirmed.  “He came as close to naming himself after you as he could.”

“Oh god,” Darcy groaned, flopping back on the couch and trying not to feel absolutely overwhelmed with how devastatingly _touching_ and simultaneously _heart-wrenching_ that was.  “Now I _have_ to keep him.”

“Right, like you were even _considering_ trying to do anything else.  I call godmother status, once it’s all figured out.”

“You can fight Natasha for it, she might have an in, what with the whole rescuing thing.”

“That’s fine,” Jane said, “I have portals and a god on my side.”

“Against a woman called the Black Widow?  Eh, I give you 50/50 odds.”


	2. Timestamp: Nicknames

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> For 80daysofunsaidthings: Remember you a/b/o au with Dugan and Darcy adopting him and you didn't know if it would be Darcy ending up with Bucky or Sam? Or all three? Just their biological clocks tripping out seeing those two? A popular fanon nickname for Darcy via tony is double D. Imagine if Dugan, not knowing what is alludes to, once he's comfortable enough references him and Darcy as Double D and what the guys reaction to that would be !! I just thought they'd die all over again XD

Jane’s the first one to say it, which is the only reason it sticks around long enough to be a problem.  She looks up at the two of them, Dugan in Darcy’s arms as she carries him into the lab, and her smile is bright and sweet when she calls, “Double D coming to visit me!”

And Darcy, faced with Jane’s beaming enthusiasm and Dugan’s shy smile in return, doesn’t have the heart to point out the unfortunate double meaning.  She can smell how pleased Dugan is, it’s warm and soft like baked apples.  So, she lets it slide, makes a mental note to bring it up with Jane later, out of Dugan’s hearing.  Only… well, she forgets.  It’s not a big deal, just a silly little nickname, one that only comes out when Darcy brings Dugan down to the labs.  It’s Jane’s space, it’s Jane’s way of welcoming them to it, tacitly acknowledging that they’re a package deal now and forever.

Dugan _adores_ it.

Darcy adores _Dugan_.

The nickname stays, life goes on.

Months later, when Darcy is carrying Dugan to Jane’s labs with two alphas not-so-subtly following her, she has a moment of apprehension-

“Hey, Double D!”

\- Followed by extreme hilarity as she hears not one, but _two_ military-trained superheroes trip over their own shoes on hearing the unfortunate nickname.

Darcy sets Dugan down and as he makes his way to Jane she leans out the door and stares both men down.  Sam has the good grace to look a little sheepish, Bucky gives her a blank look.  She sniffs dismissively.  “This is a Double D and J event only, your little BS crew was _not_ invited.  Friday?”

“Yes, Ms. Lewis?”

“Would you mind locking down the lab for the day, invitation only?”

“On it, Ms. Lewis!”

Darcy took great pleasure in flouncing back into the lab.  It had been a while since she’d organized a slumber party with Dugan and Jane.  Now was feeling like just the right time to rectify that.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> #amuse writes stuff #darcy lewis #dugan lewis (oc) #jane foster #bucky barnes #sam wilson #abo au #darcy is being stalked #darcy is not entirely aware of why #darcy is having fun where fun finds her #namely at others' expense whenever possible #sam and bucky make convenient targets in this instance

**Author's Note:**

> Original tumblr tags include:  
> BETA!DARCY  
> HUMAN EXPERIMENTATION IMPLIED  
> NONCONSENSUAL CLONING  
> WILDLY AU  
> IGNORES ALL THINGS AGE OF ULTRON AND CIVIL WAR BECAUSE FUCK AOU AND I HAVEN'T SEEN CIVIL WAR YET  
> KIDFIC  
> HYDRA FUCKED WITH BUCKY'S DNA AND MADE MINI!SOLDIERS  
> IN MY HEAD THIS LEADS TO EVENTUAL DARCY X SAM  
> WHEREIN SAM IS AN ALPHA  
> AND THE FIRST TIME HE MEETS DARCY SHE IS BEING ALL ADORABLE WITH DUGAN  
> AND SHE BASICALLY TRIPS SAM'S BIOLOGICAL CLOCK SO HARD HE ALMOST GETS A CONCUSSION  
> HE HAD NOT EVEN REALIZED HE HAD A BIOLOGICAL CLOCK  
> BUT THERE IT IS  
> AND THERE SHE WAS  
> SMELLING AMAZING AND BEING SUPREMELY SWEET WITH AN ADORABLE PUP  
> AND HE WANTS TO GRAB THEM BOTH UP AND SPIRIT THEM SOMEWHERE SAFE WHERE NOTHING WILL EVER HURT THEM  
> AND HE WANTS TO MAKE HER SMILE  
> AND MAKE DUGAN LAUGH  
> AND HE'S BASICALLY HEAD OVER HEELS BEFORE HE REALIZES WHAT HITS HIM  
> THIS ALL GETS WAY MORE COMPLICATED WHEN THEY EVENTUALLY BRING BUCKY BACK  
> BECAUSE BUCKY IS AN ALPHA TOO  
> AND DUGAN IS BASICALLY HIS BIOLOGICAL KID LIKE X-23 IS LOGAN'S  
> AND ALPHA!BUCKY HAS A WHOLE LOT OF REACTIONS TO DARCY AND DUGAN  
> THAT ARE SIMILAR TO SAM'S  
> IDK HOW IT ENDS  
> MAYBE IN HONORED UNCLE STATUS  
> MAYBE IN A(NOTHER) STABLE POLY THREESOME


End file.
